Remember the One Where Rachel Was Laundry Virgin?

Let’s talk for a moment about laundry. I’ve already told you that I’m cheap and lazy.

But! I do spend a little more money on detergent because, like, did you know how nasty the chemicals are in regular detergent?

At my job, I’ve recently been learning about water pollutants with the middle schoolers (taught by the local college students). When they mentioned laundry detergent causes a main source of phosphates in the river, I was shocked. Too much phosphate means plants and creatures in the river are killed, and biodiversity affects everyone. (I know it’s hard to really care about river health when you can’t imagine how it could ever affect you.) Anywho, it shocked me that something so very common could be polluting the water. Shouldn’t there be more of an effort to encourage the public to NOT use the synthetic chemically laden laundry detergents?

Besides keeping chemicals out of the water stream, we’re also consuming less petroleum. Most laundry detergents are petroleum based, so using vegetable based saves tons of oil (Whhhhy didn’t anyone tell me these things?). As a bonus, our detergent is fragrance, chlorine, and dye-free, so it will never irritate our skin, is gentler for our clothes, and the planet. ☺ That’s a pretty great deal for a little more change. (As an added measure, we also get powder instead of liquid detergent to avoid non-biodegradable and possibly non-recyclable plastic.)

PS: I think I (might) overuse (parentheses). Maybe I should, use commas for the (clauses) and asides; more often. ☺